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1a. Re: Too simple to be derived?
From: Padraic Brown
Message
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1a. Re: Too simple to be derived?
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Sat May 18, 2013 8:11 am ((PDT))
--- On Fri, 5/17/13, Zach Wellstood <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > I have read some criticism about conlangs that derive common words
> > > from words; "bad" as "ungood", for instance (what recalls Newspeak
> > > and Esperanto). What do you think about it? Do your conlangs have
> > > any very common words that are derived from others?
>
> > If the conlanger does the above out of ignorance or out of naivety,
> > then it is ill done, though certainly forgiveable! It is a sign of
> > immaturity in the art, and such a one can be taught and can improve
> > his works, like a kindergartener taking the tempra begobbed paint
> > brush in his fist and mashing it onto the newsprint taped to the easel.
>
> I am not entirely sure if I think it's "ill done,"
Okay -- maybe "poorly" or "ignorantly" done would serve better. I'm not
saying it's wrong, just that, as with all human endeavours, it can be done
better.
> or even needs correction, since the same ignorance and naivete is, to
> some degree, a creative impetus that's free of the "natlang constraints,"
This I would disagree with. As I see it, the creative impetus is there
from the beginning and whether the conlanger does this with full knowledge or
with absolute ignorance, it can be expressed. The reason why I called
the one "ill done" is simply for the fact that the naif dòesn't know any
other way, doesn't really understand what he's doing. YES, this is a
creative expression! NO, this not an artistic expression!
When the little child first takes that paintbrush in his fist and,
presuming some amount of fine motor control, thát's the time to nudge him
towards a better, finer control of brush, mixing of color and composition
of image. When the little child first comprehends numbers and takes those
first "one, two, five, three" and "2 + 3 = 7" steps, thát is the time to
teach correct numerical order and elementary arithmetic. We spend a lot of
time teaching little children how to correctly read, write, spell and do
grammar -- conlanging is really no different, except that most of us come
to it in our tweens or early teens, rather than in our preschool years.
Such a one who discovers the talent absolutely deserves some guidance in
moving from naive impetus to artistic control.
No one flies to Paris and goes to the Louvre to look at pictures mashed
out by kindergarteners. Anyone with children has only to walk into their
own kitchen and look at the fridge. People go to the Louvre or the Met to
see well done art -- the creative impulse that has been corrected,
perfected and well practiced.
Do we leave our children to grow into adults living in an uncorrected
state where they can't speak well, can't do math, don't know any history
or literature and have no concept of civil behaviour within the culture?
If not, why not? If not, why should we teach them to control their native
language, but on the other hand, leave uncontrolled and unschooled the
conlanger?
> and could yield some fairly creative lexical items/structures later on
> down the line.
Sure. I only imagine what wonders this person còuld come up with if he
were not merely creating ignorantly.
> "ungood" for "bad" isn't necessarily the móst creative thing they could
> come up with, but I do have an appreciation for slowly branching out of
> one's box to think up interesting new ways of parsing up the universe.
Of course. And "ungood", as I think I mentioned, is indeed a highly
interesting way of parsing up the universe -- because the author
did it consciously and with the big picture in mind. It wasn't done out
of ignorance or naivety, just taking a random list of adjectives (big,
good, red, fast, fat, best, pretty, warm) and saying "okay, stick 'un-' on
the front of all those to make the opposite".
> Nor do I think conscious choice *needs* justification in a conculture or
> the like,
No, indeed. Nor did I say it did. However, such justification is a mark of
how well one has done the job and the quality of the construction. Being
unable to explain any kind of rationale for what one has done is generally
a good indicator that it was done thoughtlessly or carelessly.
I'm all for wild creativity unleashed. That works for some kinds of art. It
doesn't work so well for language creation. I one time watched some guy
paint using a jet engine. He would have the pilot jiggle the throttle a
bit and then he'd dump tins of paint into the exhaust stream. Can't get
much wilder than dumping paint into hurricane force winds! Creative? Yes.
Artistic? I'd say no. There was no guidance or control of the creative
force. Anyone can splatter paint on a wall. Some people will naturally
call it art and blather on about the nuances of wind currents and force of
throw and the randomality of hue admixturation as brownian confluification
ensues whilst the streams of color run down the wall. In conlanging, we
call this kitchensinkery, where you just throw everything into a blender and
take no care for the resulting language's shape or form. If this is
done carefully and knowingly, I suspect something interesting could be the
result. If this is done ignorantly, even if exuberantly, the result is a
mess. Many of us have done just this sort of thing, and upon retrospection
have concluded that it was indeed an ill-done mess.
I am very much reminded of the creation myth here (in this case, one from
the World, which links creation and language), a myth which we are all
acting out in our art. We sit before a blank screen or a blank paper and
there is only 'URYO, the unshapen writhing in the deep of our minds,
seeking outlet through SSAMYO, the blackness before light and dark; but
then something happens, and AIYO, the first word is uttered and KSSILIYO,
creation springs forth like a mountain stream. Just as Heavenly Father
sang the first Word and creation came to be, making all things in their
order, we do the same, bringing the order of language from the chaos of
sound and noise. If we don't move beyond our ignorant and naive
beginnerdom, we run the risk of letting Tiamat win.
> so long as its creator is content with the expressive nature of the
> language.
Ignorance is truly bliss.
[...]
> <yii'isilii>- is the root (which can be broken down
> into -<yii'i> ["to be
> inside of / between"] + <silii>- [used for things with
> life, no directly
> corresponding root, however])
>
> then you have --
>
> <yii'isiliiła> (root + ANIMATE suffix), which means
> "chest/torso, the area
> from the shoulders down to the bottom of the ribcage,
> roughly"
>
> and
>
> <yii'isiliisaá> (root + ABSTRACT suffix), which means
> "heart"
>
> So I suppose this is a bit of a divergence from the original
> question, but I wanted to share a way in which more "basic" concepts are
> expressed with far more underlying complexity in łaá siri than in
> English.
It demonstrates a deeper understanding and having moved beyond the purely
naive or ignorant.
> Zach
Padraic
Messages in this topic (6)
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